Ibsen on Independent Television

In an important 1998 essay Neil Taylor compiled a fascinating ‘league table’ of the dramatists whose plays had been produced most often to that date on BBC television. No prizes for guessing who came out on top. George Bernard Shaw was second, and third was Henrik Ibsen. (‘A History of the Stage Play on BBC Television’, in Jeremy Ridgman (ed.), Boxed Sets: Television Representation of Theatre, Luton: John Libbey Media, p. 34).

In the early years of ITV Ibsen was also a favourite with the commercial companies, and one of the most exciting of the recent Library of Congress rediscoveries is a recording of the first Ibsen produced for Independent Television. This is Charles Crichton’s presentation of The Wild Duck, which was transmitted on 30 January 1957. (Next month, on 19 July, BFI Southbank is screening this exceptionally rare print.) Astonishingly, during the two years after The Wild Duck, ITV screened six further Ibsen dramas.

Ibsen on television will be one of my research projects as Screen Plays develops, but while there is an accessible list of BBC Ibsen dramas (although this is no sense complete), nothing comparable exists online for the ITV plays. So today’s blog post offers just that, with credit information drawn from the absolutely essential resource, The Kaleidoscope British Independent Television Drama Research Guide 1955-2010 by Simon Coward, Richard Down and Christopher Perry (Dudley: Kaleidoscope, 2010) that is now available as a .pdf download (click on the title link). Anyone interested in television drama absolutely has to have a copy.

All of the following are subjects for further research.

• Play of the Week: The Wild Duck (Associated Rediffusion for ITV), transmitted 30 January 1957.

Written by Henrik Ibsen; translated by Ernest Borneman; produced and directed by Lionel Harris. With Pamela Brown (Hedda), Michael Gwynn (Doctor Jorgen Tesman), George Voskovec (Brack), John Neville (Ejlert Lovborg). No archival copy is known to exist.

•Play of the Week: A Doll’s House (Associated Rediffusion for ITV), transmitted 31 October 1961.

Translated by James Walter McFarlane; based on a play by Henrik Ibsen; directed by Robert Tronson. With Paul Rogers (Torvald Helmer), Zena Walker (Nora), Kenneth Griffith (Nils Krogstad), Jennifer Wilson (Mrs Kristine Linde), James Maxwell (Doctor Rank). No archival copy is known to exist.

Adapted by Emlyn Williams; based on a play by Henrik Ibsen; directed by Peter Wood. With Laurence Olivier (Solness), Celia Johnson (Mrs Solness), Maggie Smith (Hilde Wangel), Peter Cellier. Archive copy exists; programme features only an excerpt filmed on the West End stage.

•Saturday Night Theatre: A Doll’s House (Yorkshire Television for ITV), transmitted 17 January 1970, 75 minutes.

Adapted by John Osborne; based on a play by Henrik Ibsen; produced by Pat Sandys; directed by David Cunliffe. Diana Rigg (Hedda Gabler), Denis Lill (George Tesman), Philip Bond (Eilert Lovborg), Alan Dobie (Judge Brack), Kathleen Byron (Aunt Juliana). Archive copy exists and has been released as a commercial DVD.

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2 thoughts on “Ibsen on Independent Television”

As I understand it, Ibsen was also quite often performed in rep in the mid-twentieth century, too. As a classic dramatist who could attract an audience, but who wrote plays for small casts that only required stock sets and costumes, he fitted well into the repertory, and the fifties television programming reflects this status.

I think you’re absolutely right, Billy, and one of the things I’m interested in exploring is Ibsen’s place in British theatre in the years before television went on the air (and after). BUt of course it’s also interesting that in the first years of Independent Television the companies felt that they needed to have such classic theatre on the screen.